Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving 2012

I feel like it's been so long since we've been out to Salt Lake. Me and Ti were planning on spending Thanksgiving here in Vegas, but got to talking about how much we missed our family back home. After only a couple minutes we changed our plans and decided that we would be driving out to Utah to spend the holiday with our families. We got a hotel room this time because Ti thought it would be fun to be downtown near the lights.
Wednesday night the boys wanted to spend the night at Grandma's house with all the cousins (of course).

Look who we saw as soon as we got there!! Little Miss Ella

When me and Ti were back at the hotel we were notified that Ti's grandma had a stroke and was in the emergency room :( So Thursday morning was spent at the hospital with Ma. I am so grateful that Ti was able to be by her side holding her hand.
Afterwards we went over to my moms house and I cannot even begin to explain how delicious the food was. If you have been lucky enough to taste my moms cooking, then you know I am not exaggerating when I say this lady is the best cook!!!! We've come up with a weekend strategy when it comes to the holidays. Often times we have so much food leftover it's ridiculous... so she cooks traditional Tongan food on Thursday, Friday we eat those leftovers, Saturday we cook our traditional American food (turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.) then Sunday we eat those leftovers... Voila - a weekend of amazing food to celebrate our culture and livelihood here in the U. S. of A. :)

Mafileo & Ruby Mei

Diaper pals: Lucky & Ella

Later that night we went to Ova & Monica's and me and Monica attempted to do some "Black Friday" shopping at Walmart... and we came out of the store traumatized lol.

Friday after breakfast we went to Gateway and watched Life of Pi in 3D.

Salt Lake does it fancy with their 3D glasses

When we walked out of the theater we were greeted by Sau & Suliana. We had lunch with them at Tucano's ... yummmmm!!

Friday night we planned on going to Temple Square with my family so each of my siblings got hotel rooms as well so we could spend the entire day downtown. As soon as we got back to the hotel the kids invaded the pool. They swam til the sun went down.

After getting dressed and filling up with cocoa in the lounge we headed to Temple Square where we walked the grounds admiring the beautiful Christmas lights.

Saturday we took family pictures which is always a struggle when you have 3 rambunctious boys. We had dinner that night at my Moms and Sunday we checked out and headed back to Vegas. It seriously was such a great trip, that as it came to a close, we decided that we would head back for Christmas :)

Baptism by Immersion: Nicolaus Fangupo

Nic turned 8 on September 2, 2012. We finally were able to set a date for his baptism that would allow Ti Tonga to be here with us. As the assigned day drew nearer we were thrilled to find out that our family from Salt Lake would be joining us for Nic's special day as well. It was awesome!!! What a memorable day for him and he was so happy to be able to spend it with his family. Congratulations Nici. We are so proud of you.

Nic was baptized on November 3, 2012 at the Las Vegas Spring Mountain Stake. Our ward just split so he was the very first person to be baptized in the Windmill Ward. He was baptized by his Grandpa Tevita Moala and confirmed by his Grandpa Kina Fangupo.

A Camping We Will Go!

Fatu and his Cedar buddies have gotten pretty serious about fishing this past summer and I told him that me and Ti wanted to come out for the day and fish with the boys. He was totally up for the idea. Misi heard about it and said that he wanted to come too and before we knew it, it turned in to an entire family event. So we set a date and everyone got their time off work. We decided to camp at the site that Fatu works at. Everyone was assigned a meal to provide and provisions to bring that would help us survive the weekend :) Mine and Neo's family were the first ones to leave. We picked up Fatu from Cedar and started our way up to the site... Wow!!! It was way more of a drive than I imagined. But it was sooooooooooo beautiful!!!!! We pulled up to our designated campground and I was blown away. It was perfect!!! We set up our tents and scoped out the site and had time just to hang out with the kids.

First one up, first dibs on a parking for Goldy

Neo & Kauasi's toy tent lol

My parents and Sila & Abe didn't get there til the sun went down... so we ended up setting up their tents in the dark. Yeah... I can't even believe we pulled that one off. Because of all the wild fires in Utah all open fires were banned... booo!!! My parents brought up their grills and we seriously had the BEST prepared meals up there!

The kids were so happy to be together with all their cousins.

Sila's kids watched the Dark Knight the day before so they had these masks they wore the ENTIRE camping trip haha

 

After breakfast on Saturday we did a little sight seeing at Cedar Breaks National Monument.

How's that for a view?!

Then we went to Navajo Lake to hang out and fish.

Kev joined us and helped the kids out with his fishing expertise :)

 

Unfortunately it started to rain, so we all made our way back to camp. My parents had stayed behind to cook so when we got back (fishless) we had terriyaki chicken, rice, and potato salad waiting for us... yum!!!

Kids got a hold of the camera and snapped these...

Fatu ended up running back to his place to grab more hoodies, beanies, and blankets cause it was FREEZING after the rain. The next morning we ate breakfast, hung out and chatted, then loaded everything up and headed back to civilization. We had such a good time that we decided that we would make a tradition out of camping every year.

 On our way down the canyon, we stopped by one more time to soak up the view...